Livingston is quite a prominent little town. It has many connections with pop culture directly and indirectly.
Todd Solondz's movies are all heavily influenced around the town of Livingston, NJ.
"Welcome to the Dollhouse” for example is thought to be the embodiment of Solondz’s own experiences growing up there. The direct connection to the town of Livingston is the fact that the school in the movie is named Heritage. Heritage is a middle school in Livingston, NJ.
Solondz’s next movie, “Happiness” seems to deal less with our beloved town. However, if you watch the uplifting scene where Bill Maplewood jerks off in a parking lot, you will notice that this was clearly shot in the town. He is on the cross street of Livingston Ave. and Mt. Pleasant (Route 10).
"Story Telling” features a well-to-do neurotic Jewish family which is typical of Livingston. The direct connection, is that the family’s surname is in fact, Livingston. Thats all there is to say about that.
In the book Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth Livingston is referenced, but only briefly. In the following passage the main character is complaining about his emotional scars of his parents who always badger him about the success of their friends children. The irony is that he is in fact highly succesfull, yet his parents don’t see it because his success doesn’t have anything to do with the medical field.
"Oh, that’s one of the words they just love, almost as much as doctor. And residency. And best of all, his own office. He opened his own office in Livingston... He owns six different splitlevel ranch-type houses made all of fieldstone in Livingston, and belongs to the boards of eleven synagogues-"
Though this was written in the 60‘s, it is still a cornerstone of the Jewish religion to have intense guilt for not becoming a doctor. Especially for those born around the Livingston crowd.
I can recall on one occasion that I heard Livingston Referenced on “The Sopranos.” However, I do not recall the context nor will I bother to further research this topic for personal reasons. (I think the show sucks. There is nothing more embarrassing than that commercial which goes “I’m from New Jersey, so of course I never miss an episode of the Sopranos.etc. sigh) Many scenes are shot in West Orange, the town that borders Livingston. Livingston (tastefully, I feel) did not offer The Sopranos a license for shooting.
As a side note, there is some small mob activity in our wonderful town. It’s always a delight when they have to dig out someone’s backyard to recover the buried corpse of some Russian Boxer. This happened a few years back. The Russian Mafia might actually be more active here than the Italian one.
There have also been some famous people to come out of the Livingston school system. The most famous one being Jason Alexander- though he’ll never admit it - who plays George Costanza in Seinfeld